Page 32 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

an embassy, two or three ministerial rank positions, a handful of minor posts and a
nomination for second vice president in the official ticket.

This came as no surprise to those who had read the speech by the new Liberal
chairman, Esquivel, at the dinner meeting of the party held on November 21, 1983,
published in La Estrella de Panamá. Referring to the Defense Forces, Esquivel said:
“within the process of democratic transition we are currently going through, they
cannot and should not remove themselves totally from the political arena”. (Our
underscoring). Esquivel omitted to mention the most important thing, that “they do not
want to”.

The circumstances surrounding the Panameñista Party are even more shameful
and the military complicity even more direct and fraudulent. In April 1981, Luis Gaspar
(“Toti”) Suárez and Alonso (“Bucho”) Pinzón, both former assistants of Arias,
appropriated the name and the symbols of the yet to be registered Panameñista Party
and decided –obviously without Arias’s approval– to register it themselves. In this they
had the help of none other than Torrijos himself, as subsequently acknowledged by one
of their accomplices, at that time the Director of Electoral Organization and an alternate
Electoral Tribunal justice. This was a bold theft that could not have been committed
without the complicity of electoral officials.
From the very outset of this registration, vitiated ab initio, rumors were rife
that the Electoral Tribunal was aiding the fraud. Finally, in July 1981, the Popular
Action Party denounced the crime and in January 1982, more than 50,000 signatures
fraudulently obtained through the direct cooperation of electoral officials and with the
support of the National Guard were annulled. This notwithstanding, Suárez and Pinzón
were able to consummate their shameless theft. In March 1983, they allegedly met the
30,000-signature requirement. Their party was born out of a fraud, its only raison d'être
was to deceive.
FRAMPO, another UNADE member, was one more instrument of the military
top brass. It was created late in 1979, openly supported by the government, which
wanted to give the PRD a playmate for its political game. Basically, the FRAMPO is a
department or agency of the PRD and therefore there is no need to study it by itself.

The remainder of the UNADE was made up of the PALA, the Republican
Party, and the PRD. The first two groups are traditional parties of liberal leanings,
supporting whoever happens to be in power. Their main goal is to come to power to
enjoy its benefits. They were registered under Paredes’s sponsorship at the time when
his candidacy seemed to be the formula to keep the General Staff firmly ensconced in
power. The registration of the Republican Party, moreover, was tainted by some
fraudulent tinges. The Christian Democratic Party (PDC) formally accused one of the
most prominent Republican leaders of buying voter registrations with money and
liquor. But although these crimes were amply documented, the criminal party went
unpunished.